


Goddess for the weekend

by DaniP



Series: Hades and Persefone short stories [1]
Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Magic, F/M, Gods, Happy Ending, How Do I Tag, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I Tried, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Magic, Memory Alteration, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Sorry Not Sorry, What Was I Thinking?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:33:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27891586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaniP/pseuds/DaniP
Summary: So, it goes like this. In the middle of the night, when myths and magic are much more real, witches and legends awake and reign, Harold hears a voice in his dream. A whispering voice that takes him away from the sheets of his bed and the comfort of his house.
Relationships: Hades/Persephone
Series: Hades and Persefone short stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2170830
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Goddess for the weekend

**Author's Note:**

> So. English is not by any means my first language. So. sorry for all the mistakes, feel free to point them out.  
> I wrote this mostly for myself so there is that.  
> And... idk i think thats all.

It was a pretty normal Saturday night. Truly, the moon and the stars were high up in the skies, hidden by the blinding lights of the cities; the families slept, the wolfs howled, and no one gave a … cumin… about the fires scattering by the forests.

It could have been a night like many, insubstantial, forgettable and fast, or it could have been much more. It could have been the night to make a change; and in certain way, it was.

This story starts in a luxurious bedroom, all dolled up in silks and precious woods. There were porcelains and jewels and marbles, all the fancy, exuberant… cumin, rich people likes to surround themselves with.  
Harold was very much the definition of a rich man, raised in a golden spoon with the world in the palm of his hand, his every wish was an order, an immediate order; there were no bad days and no excuses; life was a party. He was not particularly temperamental or unreasonable, but he did not particularly cared either about, well, anything.

See children need a little trouble, a little hunger and a little thirst so they can grow responsible and healthy. Our boy had none of that and thus was alienated from reality.

So, it goes like this. In the middle of the night, when myths and magic are much more real, witches and legends awake and reign, Harold hears a voice in his dream. A whispering voice that takes him away from the sheets of his bed and the comfort of his house.  
The voice is enchanting, seductive, soft like a caress and alluring like a mischievous promise. It speaks in a language he cannot understand, mystical and ancient, like some Greek nymph. It lures him through streets, through the noise and filth of the city to a deserted lake in the middle of nowhere. A beautiful and unsullied place where nature grows unrestrained, little animals come and go without fright or anguish and small flowers boom in hundreds of different colors.  
The voice goes with the wind to stir the top of the trees, to revolt leafs and dust from the ground, and it gets lost in the starry sky. Harold is enraptured by the picture in front of him. 

He usually doesn’t care about these things. But this feels different, it means something. He knows he is sleeping, so perhaps this is one of those revealing dreams that people talk about after they find the meaning of life. 

He is not really interested in revelations or a path to his destiny or whatever; life is just fine the way it is: the constant parties, the girls, the games, the alcohol and luxury; all of it. 

Or maybe that’s the lie he tells to keep himself away from… all of it, from a family that’s never been a family, from fakeness and delusion, from a cruel and dangerous world, from reality. 

He may be hedonistic and carefree, but he is a smart person, he can see the cracks in the fantasy and how a heartbreaking truth leaks from it. It just easier to turn a blind eye, to close the windows and protect his heart from pain. And so he does.

Yes. This is a revealing dream. The man and the landscape. Harold, a starry sky, the trees, the subtle music of the universe, a goddess that came out of thin air, the squirrels running among the flowery branches, the grass by his feet… 

Wait.

Rewind.

…

There is a goddess that came out of thin air.

…

Ooooooookkkk. Look down. No, it more like came from below. There is a human size… hole between him and the lake, and the goddess is floating five feet above it. How he knows it’s a goddess? Well, she is dressed like Greek virgin maiden, lots of white fabric, golden decorations and leather sandals. Curly hair in a… Japanize bun? The one where you tie it up with two little sticks… that’s not very Greek… and she doesn’t look Greek, more like Latin-American… brunette, brown eyes, big lips, not so big eyes, tiny ears… no makeup… some kind of artless exotic beauty. Ok, BUT she is glowing, and looking at him with that “I know it all, yes you look dumb” godlike look. So, a goddess.  
“You done? I’ve been standing here for four minutes” Ohhh, she sounds annoyed. And now she crosses her arms in a very annoyed like gesture. Yep, she’s pissed off. 

“You’re not standing.” Very smart Harold.  
“Technicalities” She comes down and stands in front of the man. Harold looks down… she is tiny, like a minion, or a puppy… focus Harold. “I’m a goddess”  
“Yeah, I could tell.”

“Good.” She stares and leans towards him while squinting her eyes, her arms are still crossed over her chest. “I have a proposition.” Honestly, she looks kind of cute. But again, he is not particularly interested in mending his ways.

“Not thanks.” He sounds so bratty.

“You don’t know what it’s about. It could change your life; you could do great things for the world...” This is what Harold hears Bla bla bla, insert typical heroic speech… glory, bla bla salvation, bla bla bla, recognition, bla bla bla. 

“Yeah, no. Still not interested.”

She sighs, hunches her shoulders, drops her head, her arms fall like stringless puppets, and very dejected, walks (more like grads herself) to the edge of the lake.  
“I’m not good at this”

She stands by the edge of the lake for a minute, and from Harold’s perspective she looks really sad, lonely and pitiful (she may be pouting… yeah, she probably is). But then she looks up to the sky, takes a big breath, straightens her posture, sets her hands in her waist and nods. She takes off her shoes, puts them aside and sits with her calves in the water. She looks back at Harold and pats the spot besides her.

“Come, let’s talk about life.” She says and smiles slightly but her eyes seem tired. She is not glowing anymore and it might be Harold’s imagination but she looks so human now, so mundane and approachable. It seems like there was some real sadness and loneliness in the dramatics form before. He wants to cuddle her. So he goes and sits by her side. He has no shoes to take off, so he rolls up his pyjamas, it feels appropriated, like they both let took off their masks.  
They sit there in silence for a while, there is no rush, that’s the good thing about dreams, time is infinite, and there is no need of pretense. 

“I’m gonna talk, you’ll listen. Just hear me out. It probably makes no sense, but I need this.” She plays with her hands, it’s a nervous habit, the kind that people do when shorting out their thoughts. “I come from an island in the middle of a sea of pirates. Sorry I can’t tell you the actual names, gods stuff, you’ll understand no?” She looks at Harold with a worried face, like she truthfully cares for his approval, so he nods and she continues. “I know trust is all about honesty, but I can’t give you that now, sorry… Like I said, an island in a sea of pirates. It’s not so small, but not big either, it’s a pretty nice place; so that’s my home. I have a family, mom, dad and sister… well my family is actually bigger, grandmas, grandpa, a bunch of cousins and so much people I don’t know. Good stuff, bad stuff, like all I guess. I’m 23 this year, and I’m studying at university, gonna be an Architect. It was not my dream, I wanted to be a ballerina, but that went not so well…” She looks up at the sky and then at Harold again with sad eyes and a faint smile, his heart skips a beat.  
“I can’t dance to save my soul. But then I fell in love… with buildings, and history, and humanity, and beauty. I’m not blind, Architecture’s a bitch, gets used to do all kinds of nasty stuff; but we need it to survive, might as well do some good with it. And then, I fell in love again, with Urbanism. I didn’t knew it at first, it was kind of an attraction, like it was a sexy concept I guess.” She leagues, amused at herself; and Harold’s heart skips another beat.” Then one day in a seminary, a schoolmate makes quote, I can’t remember form hum, but the phrase haunts me; she said that if you could change the streets, you could change the world. I always wanted to do something like that. To save a kingdom, meet elves, tame dragons, ride unicorns. Save the world. I was a pretty unrealistic person.  
“For me, life had no real meaning, we humans were just cosmic casualties of chaos and evolution. I was pretty lost; and no one has a manual about how to live life. By the time I realized that, I knew I had a path, a road, something to life for.” She puts her hands in her lap and talks looking at the horizon. “So I found myself and I was in a kind of rapture. I wasn’t going to save the world, but I could make it a better place, I could wash away the guilt I felt for having a lovely family and been raised in a nice place.

“And then, a pretty normal Saturday night, in a dream; a god comes out of nowhere; well, he comes from below nowhere, much like I did with you.” She looks proudly at Harold and this time there is mirth in her eyes, like she did a little mischief and no one noticed. She is like a little girl making voices and hand gestures for her story. Harold’s heart skips several beats.

“the Holy World is a pretty complicated thing to explain in a short dream, so I’ll make it simple. Think of Greek mythology, that’s the most accurate pantheon… I think. Thus according to that logic, he would be something like… Hades.” Harold’s eyes open like plates at that, he looks so silly, like a dumbfounded owl, the goddess laughs at him with no restrains. To be honest it’s a really funny face.

“I thought you were a modern version of Aphrodite!” Oh god, Harold is so lost right now. What Happened?  
“JAJAJAJA, no! I’m not, jajaja. Didn’t the ‘coming from the underground’ ringed any bells. Well, where was I? Oh, yeah; Hades comes out of nowhere. Anyway, he just sits there and starts complaining about how all the other gods have apprentices and he is pitifully lonely, and stressed out, sleep deprived and has not seen Persephone in centuries. You should have seen it, it was so pathetic it was hilarious; a grown up and imposing god, dressed in black silk and silver armor all spread out in the grass crying like a baby. At some point he even starts drinking (I still don’t know where the wine came from), and passes out. 

“I thought it was a really strange dream, but that was it. Until it wasn’t. He kept coming back and talking the night off. Tring to convince me that being a goddess was the 8th wonder, and that I should give it a try. I thought I was going crazy, I mean we had precedents in the family so it was a pretty real possibility, and the situation was fanfiction material, you have to admit that. 

“But then he begins doing things that had no scientific explanation, like, he knew things that no one else did, made diamonds appear in the ground, that kind of stuff.” “She is yelling now.” I was scared. I freaked out. I lost it, no shame. Fucking Hades was talking to me in my dreams!!” She grabs Harold’s lapels and repeatedly shakes him. He takes her hands and holds them still, in front of them until she calms down.

“Fucking Hades was talking to me in my dreams! Ah, that was crazy. He’s crazy. Ufff, I know I have issues with sanity, but man, that almost gave me a heart attack. 

Ahhh, en fin; Hades wanted me to be his apprentice. That was a big deal. He made it sound all nice and pretty. Like I would have the power I wanted to make a change, that I could make the world a better place. At that time, I had really low self-esteem (I still kind of do, but I’m working on it), and I could not believe he choosed me, ordinary, not grandiose, fragile, pathetic me. What could I possibly do? I would just ruin it all!  
But then, he went serious and said: “Nathalie, I reign over death. I have all the power you can imagine and more. I have seen all kinds of things, I have felt and lived through the creation and destruction of worlds. You have the kindness and compassion for not to take this power lightly, the right judgment to use it justly and fair, the strictness to use it when it’s needed even if it hurts, you are hardworking, brave and humble. You have the sacred light of greatness inside you. I believe in you.” 

He made me cry with that. So… I mean it’s death and destruction, but imagination can make anything useful. So I took the bait…. It’s just that, at that time, I had just figured out my life, and I wanted to make it to make it through. So, we made a deal, until the day of my mortal death, I would be just Nathalie on weekdays and would have no memories of the Holy World, and I would be his apprentice on weekends and have my full memories. 

Let me tell you something, being the goddess of death is hard, the exhausting kind of hard, and Hades talks big like he’s such a good master, like he helps me understand the ins and outs of the role. But he doesn’t, he dumps a pile of work at me and goes running to Persephone. And on top of that I have my thesis to finish! I have been running around for months doing field work! The closest I have been to having ANY kind of social life is when I talk to my measuring type in the middle of the night! For God’s Sake last night, I had a discussion with my computer because I wanted fried chicken and she was too lazy to go and make it!  
My point is, I’m going nuts, again. I need a break and to let out some steam. So here we are, any questions?”  
“Your life sounds rough” Harold sais and the fucker is amused at the goddess.

“No cumin Sherlock!” she drops down and lies in the ground with her arms extended. “anything intelligent?”

“Why me?” He looks at her, like he did not just asked the most boring question in existence. 

“Seriously? That’s your best soot?”

“Just answer it”

“sigh… you were a name on the list”

“What list?”

“The ‘powerful and influential people that can do something productive and good for the world while they are alive’ list. I just picked your name randomly for tonight; but I got tired and bored, and I feel lonely so you get special treatment, me talking your ears off for a hole night.”

“So you don’t do this with all the others that don’t concede to your salvation plans?”

“Nah… I just threaten them a little, I’m the master of death remember, I get to play the bad guy. I’m a little menace.” And she grins. It’s supposed to be an evil grin, but Harold finds it adorable. “But seriously now. You are a good guy. You just need a push in the right direction. Believe me, you are in my list; I’ve read your file.” She winks at him and stands up. “It’s getting late; I should get going.”

“Will I ever see you again?” Harold looks up and asks. The goddess stops in the middle of lacing her sandal and looks at him.

“I don’t think so. It’s a pretty long list, I won’t probably remember you next week, Nathalie doesn’t know you, and I’ll make you forget most of this dream anyway so… no, we won’t see each other again… perhaps when you die and I judge your soul… 

“At that time, will you remember me?”

“… probably no… sorry”

He stands up and looks down at her with million-dollar smile “Then, I’ll make you remember me” He puts his hand in her shoulders and leans down, their faces are inches apart. “I’ll make you remember the name of the man that saved the world.” He comes closer and closer with every word. The goddess stands there paralyzed, because those eyes, she has seen them before. They have kept her stealing glances all night, because she was not quite sure; but she is now. And she smiles, there is no way she could forget those eyes.

“Then it’s a promise. I’ll wait for you in the underground.” And Harold Kisses her for the first and only time in his life.

Harold wakes up Sunday morning and he can’t remember who, but he just knows someone is waiting for him in some remote place at the end of the world. It seems silly and impossible, but some little voice inside his head tells him that’s the truth that matters most.  
So when his friends come to pick him up for the next big party he does not go. The one waiting for him won’t be there, he knows. 

She won’t be in any of the places he used to go.  
So he goes to new places. He does all kinds of things, helps a lot of people, and animals, and trees. By the time he is old and his hairs are all white, he has help built schools and hospitals all over the world; has donated millions to natural reserves, his family’s companies have all turn to green and constantly invests in scientific research for better, planet friendly technologies. He has driven many to do like him, has created associations, participated in progressive movements for all kinds of good changes. He also has visited all islands that have ever been attacked by pirates, all the remote places in the world, all the important cities, but never found wat he was searching for. 

Harold dies on a Wednesday afternoon. 

He closes his eyes and knows there is no coming back.

And then a huge door opens up, there is a young lady there, all dressed in black and silver armor, her arms are crossed over her chest and she is pouting.

“Took you long enough”

Oh, he remembers now. Persephone was waiting for him. He wanted a break and made her take his place for a bit.

“Don’t be so dramatic, you love that crown.”

“The hell I love this work”

**Author's Note:**

> Extra.
> 
> “what about the other gods don’t they do this things?”
> 
> “Yeah... some do. But… we all have… different visions of …. Who am I kidding, they’re a bunch of idiots, can’t do anything useful with their lives, they just party all day and I do the work. AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Kill me now, I hate my life.


End file.
